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Wednesday, 11 August 2010

The London Particular, New Cross

Is New Cross, my 'hood, finally becoming trendy? Along a stretch of shabby looking houses, rough-looking pubs and of course our favourite nightclub, The Venue, outside of which there is a booze-fuelled chavtastic fight every weekend, a little coffee shop popped up. I gawped at it on its day of opening when I hurried past, my sights set on a bubble tea but I vowed to return to check it out. Billed as a 'bowl food cafe', it's so named after the blend of coffee they use.

On a Saturday afternoon at 1pm, it was busy; all the seats outside were taken, and the solo large communal table indoors had a spare couple of places for me and my friends. Delicious-looking cakes line the windows, and the weekend brunch menu proudly declares all its food as home made, aside from the bread. Coffee, though it took half an hour to arrive, was smooth, rich and well made.

After huge deliberation, I decided upon a bacon, halloumi and fresh tomato sandwich, with roasted garlic mayonnaise, and a side salad. This beast turned up, without the salad which appeared a few minutes later when I enquired after it. I was worried the bacon and halloumi combination would be too salty, but the tang of the tomato balanced it nicely. The mayonnaise gave a wimpish hint of garlic. Salad was of the chickpea, squash, rocket and cauliflower variety, nicely dressed with lemon.

All in all, a very good lunch. I was confused by their pricing though; the sandwich came in at a very reasonable £5, but because the sausage sandwich came with a side salad (priced altogether at £6), I assumed the bacon and halloumi would too. I was wrong, and I was charged an extra £3 for it. I ended up spending a tenner on my lunch, which caused me to raise (alright, arch) my eyebrow.

The service may be slow, but I'll forgive them that as they have only just opened. With more careful ordering, I will definitely be back; it's high time New Cross had a decent cafe.

21 comments:

Half an hour to wait for a coffee? That's shocking - I'd probably have walked by then. Was the salad you ordered with the bacon sarnie discernibly larger than the one that came free with the sausage sarnie? If not, I'd be doubly pissed off. The place looks nice though.

Mr Noodles - you have a point, but they're new, independent and earnest. Teething problems are to be expected, but worth bearing with for a decent cafe run from the heart and with everything homemade. For what it's worth the coffee and food are great, the people lovely and I've not had a bad wait yet. Best of luck to em.

After 13 years of waiting for a decent coffee shop near my house in New Cross I was chuffed to see the Particular open. We went for coffee and a cake last week and both were fantastic. I really hope other people realise that New Cross is crying out for good cafes, restaurants and shops now we have places like this and Panda Panda as I'd love to see the high street used properly and not just full of shops selling tat and fried chicken!

I believe this cafe is named after a traditional london pea soup. The coffee blend is named after the shop and supplied by the queens coffee roaster no less. A welcome addition to an otherwise grubby row.

I too feel I got a little bit stiffed when I dropped by the other day to sample the brioche tarts. A ticket by the entrance quoted the price of a coffee and tart at £3, so I was more than a little surprised when I ended up getting charged £5.

Still, nice to see a decent cafe in the area and I hope this is just the beginning of many more.

I LOVE this place, such a bonus for the area. Agree that it is a touch expensive (£2.95 for a small glass of iced tea?!) but nothing else in the area touches it. I, for one, am happy to pay for decent homemade quality food and by the full tables I see everytime I walk past, so are many others in the area.